


i'll give you nothing else to do, now we're stuck on rewind

by sternenrotz



Category: The Horrors (Band)
Genre: (there's a non-graphic scene where rhys is 20 and joe is 17), Canon Compliant, Casual Sex, Consensual Infidelity, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Light Angst, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Schmoop, Touring, Truth or Dare, as well as mentions of regular infidelity, some homophobic undertones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 02:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3834493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternenrotz/pseuds/sternenrotz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Joe says, “I'm sorry.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“I'm just mad Tom thought instead of trying to pull a girl it'd be a better idea to just ask me. Like being gay and in a band means I'm handing out free tickets to my arse or something.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Or: They all come to Rhys for sex and somewhere inbetween that and around that, there's Rhys and Joe and feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll give you nothing else to do, now we're stuck on rewind

**Author's Note:**

> titled after "Follow the Cops Back Home" by Placebo.
> 
> optional bonus nsfw ending here ([x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3834538))

Josh is always the last one to come around.

They're talking about this one morning, when they're wandering around Islington still too hyped up from adrenaline and whatever drug to sleep or even go back home, and Joe bought them both coffees from a Costa, and it's against the rules, technically, whatever weird arbitrary set of rules they have for this by now.

“It's like,” Rhys starts and takes a drag from his cigarette. “There's a sort of order behind it, how it's always happening. First, it's you. Then comes Faris, unless he's really needy, then it's first Faris and then you.”

Joe nods.

“Then comes Tom, and then finally there's Josh, because he's _not gay_ , remember, he'll only do it because everyone else does it.”

“It,” Joe repeats.

“It means me,” Rhys corrects, cackles a little. The morning is cold enough that little puffs of white that definitely aren't cigarette smoke hiccup out from his mouth, but between the warm cup in his fingers and the glowy hazy feeling that's lingering around his body he isn't noticing much of it.

Joe sniggers next to him and pauses to light himself a smoke as well. “So I've. I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“What's Josh like? You know, in bed?”

And that's the point when Rhys has to keep himself from doubling over in the middle of the street with laughter.

“Why're you asking this?” He bites down on his own teeth and says, “didn't think you were into his type.”

“I'm _not_.” Joe makes a face and sips his coffee. “I'm just. Curious, you know? 'cause I remember listening to his weird sex noises and watching him walk around with his flabby knob out when we _lived_ together, so-

“Are you saying Josh just walks around naked?”

“I don't know if he _still_ does it.”

“And it never bothered anyone?”

“Well, we learned to just ignore him after the first few days.” Joe laughs and shrugs. “But I'm actually asking because I want to know, is he worth it?”

“What d'you mean?” Rhys asks. He's not sure where either of them are going, so he pauses for a second to sip his coffee, which is all too sugary, still a bit too hot to drink, but not really bad.

“You know. Does he make up for the weirdness with good dick or do you just lie there and wait until he's finished?”

“I don't know,” Rhys says, and it probably sounds exasperated because he almost chokes on his coffee as he says it. Probably. “He's like. Like this big, wild animal. So he just bites and grunts and scratches and then I can't walk properly for like, a day.”

Josh always, _always_ has Rhys from behind.

“I think he doesn't care so long as I stay still while he puts his cock in.”

“That a good or bad thing?”

“Not so bad that I can't get off.”

They both laugh, and at some point they've started walking again, just a slow trod up the road.

“He probably thinks it doesn't count as gay so long as I look like a woman from the back.”

“What?” Joe asks.

“Yeah, I think that's like, a thing. With straight blokes.” Rhys blows away some of the steam that's rising out of his coffee cup, and he can't help but jab Joe gently in the side with his elbow. “Kinda thought you'd know all about that.”

“Nah,” Joe says back. He drops his fag on the pavement to smoulder there and moves his coffee to the other hand, so they can link arms while walking. “I'd reckon we're pretty gay.”

 

–

 

They've all got their own method for shutting Rhys up.

Josh's the worst about it, obviously, big calloused fingers that clamp over his mouth as soon as the first little whimpers leak out of him, when Josh's only easing the first few inches of his cock in. Sometimes, when he's unfocussed from being drunk or tired or so cranky that he really needs the stress relief that comes with fucking Rhys, Josh gets his nose too, doesn't let him breathe as he rocks his hips in and out and makes Rhys keen and gasp and desperately suck in air. He waits until Rhys is squirming and snarling against his hand before he lets up, before his fingers dip inward to press down on Rhys' tongue, heavy with the taste of lube and cigarette smoke and sweat, and when Rhys sucks them down to the root it makes him growl, louder than anything else potentially could, makes him whisper dirtyfilthy things into the back of Rhys' ear.

Maybe that's the worst part about sleeping with Josh, how he never, _ever_ shuts up even when he's gagging Rhys on his fingers, insisting him he need to be quiet, don't let anyone hear it.

And still the whole time, Josh's big mouth goes, “so fucking tight for me,” and, “feel so good around my cock,” calls Rhys easy and a slag and desperate, and desperate is how Rhys _feels_ , too.

Because even if he's selfish and weird and never stops talking, Josh's dick is still just right inside him, stretching him out and curving at the right angle to grind up against the most sensitive spots on every thrust, so by the end of it Rhys is sweat-soaked and shaky and fucked right into a burning orgasm when Josh's hand never even moved from where it's clawing into the soft of Rhys' hip.

Josh gets Rhys needy and open and uses him to get off and then after he falls asleep and Rhys has to deal with the wet spot and the mess on his belly and the bigger mess dripping back out of him and the bruises on his neck himself.

 

–

 

It probably starts the first time they go to America. They've got a hotel in New York for the next few nights, and they're not playing a show until tomorrow, so Rhys is looking forward to a nice shower and a warm cosy bed after the long plane ride. This place looks nice enough to probably have a mini bar, or at least it definitely has a regular bar, so maybe he'll get drunk with Joe and then fool around, too.

Faris collects all the key cards from the reception and says, “all right. So, here's my key.”

Faris always gets the single room when they're in hotels because he's the front man or something, but Rhys has this suspicion it's mainly because he's trying to hide something, like an embarrassing snore or a collection of wet specimens he keeps in his man-bag, maybe.

“Tom,” he says, and he hands another card over to Tom, “Joe?”

“Cheers,” Joe says and shoves the key into his trouser pocket.

And Rhys is about to follow Joe's lead over to the elevator when he feels a hand tugging on his sleeve. Tom's hand.

“Hey. Rhys? You free tonight?”

“What?”

Because that's not how anyone would word that question unless Tom wants to do something other than get drunk at the mini bar with Rhys tonight.

Rhys throws a quick glance over at Joe, but Joe just gives the sleaziest nod he can muster up, and Rhys can _see_ the little gears in his brain working with the knowledge exactly why Tom is asking, even when he's gesturing for Josh to come over.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Because Joe can just get drunk with Josh tonight and then they can talk about breasts and shoegaze together, or whatever other topics garner Josh's interest when he's intoxicated.

“Cool.”

When they're in the elevator, Tom says, “I've been thinking we should spend time together more frequently, you know?”

He's about as smooth as a high school boy but Rhys still laughs.

“Since you're always huddling together with Joe and I'm always stuck with Josh and Faris, and those guys are...”

“Cunts.” Rhys steps out of the lift when the door rings and says, “they're cunts. What room are we in again?”

The feeling only creeps in when Rhys is actually having that shower he wanted. He'd let Tom go first, even if his hair feels heavy and matted, his skin greasy despite those baby wipes smuggled in his bag he used to keep from feeling too dirty, so the little en-suite is already littered with Tom's soap and his used towel on the rack. The basin of the shower is still wet when Rhys steps inside.

He's not an idiot, he knows exactly what Tom is going to want to do and he doesn't exactly _mind_ because it's not like he doesn't know the feeling of being needy for a shag while on the road, but still, he at least thought it'd take longer than their first day in a foreign country. Rhys turns the warm water up all the way and gropes for his bottle of shampoo, the good one that makes his hair feel silky-smooth and swishy, trembles underneath the scald and tries not to feel like a piece of meat in anticipation of what's coming.

In a weird roundabout way, he knows this is what he signed up for back when he first told the rest of the guys that he's gay, gay and single and always ready to hook up with whatever blokes he meets at clubs. “Single and ready to hook up” translates to “will help out with bouts of sexual frustration while on tour”, and, again, it's not that Rhys _minds_.

Still, there's a part of him that's beginning to feel vaguely ill when he guides his fingers between his legs, to make sure he's clean for Tom back there, nauseous at the realisation he's about to let his own band mate who's probably never been with another man before put it up his arse. He scratches an itch on his inner thigh and turns the water down again, and he rinses his hair one more time, cold, just for good measure.

When he steps back into the hotel room, just in a towel because he figures Tom won't want to wait for that long, Tom is smoking cross-legged on one of the beds in his underwear. Rhys' first thought when he sits himself down, careful to not completely expose himself just yet, is that he's hairier than he would have guessed. Maybe also that the bulge in his pants is bigger than Rhys would have expected, but not unwelcome by any means.

“Hey.”

“Used up all the hot water?” Tom asks and exhales a stream of smoke up towards the ceiling. His eyes have gone raccoonish with smudgy black kohl, lashes long and dark when he lets them flutter shut.

“Possibly.” Rhys plucks the stubby fag from Tom's hand and takes a deep drag, and he says, “is this what you had in mind when you were saying we should spend time together more often?” because he's never been a subtle person to begin with.

“Not exactly that,” Tom says back, but he's leaning in close to Rhys, rather than away with revulsion, and he says, “you look even more like a bird when you're fresh out of the shower, did you know?”

“You implying I have _man tits_?” and Rhys is laughing when he says it, yes, but he also has the feeling that they won't actually get anywhere if he lets Tom talk for much longer.

He closes the small distance between their mouths, just a soft, open-mouthed kiss that tastes like nicotine and toothpaste and has Tom's nervous laughter mingling into it. Their fingers link together, too, Tom's hand clammy, and that's _exactly_ like hooking up with a high school boy. (However, Rhys is pretty sure he was far less awkward when he was that age.)

“Didn't mean that at all. Just.” Tom's free hand comes up to rub at Rhys' cheekbone, where he's dimly aware his make up must have smudged and given him raccoon eyes just like Tom's in the shower, and he says, “you're so pretty right now. Soft.”

Then he's going in for another kiss, deeper this time, just in time to shut Rhys up, and honestly, he's all right at this part of it. Good enough at kissing for Rhys to not mind that he's being shut up, in fact.

The world keels over and like that, he's flipped onto his back, their foreheads knocking together with it, and Tom's hands roam up his arm and down his throat to his chest. Rhys knows that motion, the soft circles of Tom's bass-calloused fingers, the searching-for-breasts caress all the boys who have never been with another man before do, but his nipples are already pebbled and sensitive before Tom first thumbs over them.

“Pretty pink nipples.”

Tom twiddles both of them with his fingers, squeezing a pair of non-existent tits together, and Rhys relishes the touch all the same, relishes it when the towel comes undone at his waist and leaves his cock exposed to the cool air.

“Small tits.”

“Please,” Rhys starts, and he sounds needier than he really is, even if he _is_ indeed pretty needy already, but he mainly just wants Tom to be quiet. His hands find Tom's hair, the flesh of his bum, pull him in close enough to align their bodies and add in delicious friction, and Rhys whispers, “shut up and kiss me some more.”

And Tom does, he keeps on kissing Rhys and stroking over his chest, keeps on grinding their cocks together through the thin cotton barrier of his briefs, until Rhys is mewling with it, which, again, takes an embarrassingly short amount of time. It's _really_ been too long since he last got any dick.

“You're a vocal one, are you,” Tom asks once he pulls back, when he's moved on from Rhys' mouth down to his neck, stubble catching on the sensitive skin there.

Yeah, Rhys _is_ , vocal to the point of it being embarrassing, maybe, but he doesn't want to have to talk through this, even if a little mewl does slip out. He wants Tom's cock and for this to get over with quicker, and his hand in Tom's hair tightens once again.

“Want to taste my cock before I fuck you or do you want to get straight to the main event?”

“Shut _up_ ,” Rhys insists, once again. “You sound like a high school boy trying to be sexy.”

It turns out, at the very least, that Tom doesn't also fuck like a high schooler. He takes his time with Rhys, really takes as much time as possible considering he's horny and needy and inexperienced, and their lips stay pressed together for enough of that time to keep him from saying too many stupid things. Tom opens Rhys up gently, three fingers and the bottle of lube Rhys keeps stashed at the bottom of his duffel bag just in case, makes sure to go slow and ask him if he's okay ever so often, which really, _really_ isn't what Rhys had expected out of this.

When Tom's eased all of his cock in, when he's got Rhys turned halfway onto his side, they just stay like that for a split second, and that's when Rhys finally finds the time to ask the question.

“You've done this before,” he says, “right?”

“Maybe,” Tom drawls. He moves in for a kiss, careful to not jostle his cock just yet, give Rhys the time he needs to acclimate, but Rhys isn't going to be satisfied with just that answer.

“Maybe means yes?” Rhys asks, threads his fingers through the back of Tom's hair once again, just so he can't get out of it by kissing Rhys some more.

“Yeah.” And Tom laughs, giddy like a high school boy once again.

“With who?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Who'd you do it with?”

“Thought you'd said you wanted me to shut up,” Tom says back, and he's got the stupidest smirk on his face.

“No, just,” actually that facial expression is enough to make Rhys want to shut Tom up and just get shagged senseless by him.

And that's when Tom snaps his hips for the first time, so the rest of whatever Rhys had intended to say cuts off into a weird noise that's half choked-off giggle and half gasp.

“Cunt,” he exclaims, but then Tom hits his prostate dead-on and Rhys actually squeaks.

“Now, now,” Tom starts. His fingers come up to Rhys' jaw, hold him in place surprisingly firmly and muffle any noises that would've slipped out otherwise, and he says, “you want to be quiet now, love, else everyone over in the next room will hear you.”

His voice is stupidly low and _too_ much, and Rhys would say something or tell Tom to stop talking if it weren't for the hand on his jaw.

“Yeah?” Tom asks, when he removes that hand and slips it down to rub over Rhys' precome-wet cock, and Rhys isn't going to protest.

 

–

 

It's not until months later when Rhys finally gets the answer to that question.

What's going on is, they've finished recording an album so they're celebrating it by getting drunk in Tom's living room, _obviously_ because that's what rock stars do, or something.

An hour or so ago, Joe had picked up an empty bottle of tequila and gone, “hey, I've an idea.” And he giggled in that stupid drunken way he has and wiped his red-hot face with the back of his hand and said, “let's play truth or dare.”

And Faris said, “truth or dare, how old _are_ you?” but he's a moody drunk to begin with.

“Old enough to have fun,” Rhys said back, and since they were already sitting on the floor in something resembling a circle closely enough, he took the bottle from Joe's hands and placed it on the carpet. “Truth or dare, you miserable little goths.”

So they're playing truth or dare.

Well, technically, by this point, they're playing _truth_ , because after Tom had dared Rhys to drink a shot glass worth of hot sauce, and Joe had dared Tom to snog Faris, and, in turn, Faris had dared Joe to snog Josh, Joe had dared Tom to take off three pieces of clothing.

“But it can't be your _socks_. Three actual pieces of clothing. Let's see some bare skin.”

“Fuck you,” Tom said back, when he'd already had two fingers fumbling on his one sock. “I'm not doing that.”

“Why _not_?” Rhys asked, put on his best doe eyes and pout.

“Yeah, let's give us a nice piece of your man-carpet,” Josh added in, and he reached over to snag a finger in the collar of Tom's turtleneck.

“Josh. Josh, hands off,” Faris said through his teeth, but Josh didn't seem to pay him any attention. “Leave Tom's man-carpet out of this.”

And Tom said, “I'm not doing this,” completely ignoring Faris as well. He gave Josh a look, even after he'd retreated that hand, and said, “I'm pretty sure I'm only wearing three pieces of clothing including my pants, and I'm not putting my nads on my carpet.” Tom said, “I'm refuting this one.”

“What d'you have to do then? If you refute a dare?” Faris asked.

“Drink.” Rhys groped for one of the shot glasses littering the floor between the regular glasses and the bottle of whiskey they still had left and said, “for every dare you refuse to do, you have to take a shot.”

“Of hot sauce,” Josh threw in, at the same time that Joe asked, “when did this become a drinking game?” but Tom already accepted the shot of Jim Beam Rhys was handing over to him.

He downed it in one go, coughed a little bit, and then he asked, “what now?”

“Now Joe spins the bottle again, I guess,” Faris said, and, just for a second, Rhys had to admire that he was actually getting into this whole thing.

“Yeah,” Joe confirmed, and somehow, in the few seconds that Rhys wasn't looking at him, he'd managed to unbutton his shirt and shrug most of it off, and now he was unzipping his skinny fits and wriggling out of them.

“What're you doing?” Tom asked, as he was folding his clothes and making a neat pile, trousers, shirt and waistcoat, a pretty stupid question, actually, considering it didn't take much in general to get Joe undressed.

“I thought that was, like, a rule,” Joe said back. “That if you don't take a dare then someone else has to do it, and I was wearing too many clothes to begin with, so,” and he reached forward for the bottle lying on the carpet.

“This game has way too many rules,” Josh complained.

“Well, you don't have to play if you don't like it.” Rhys cackled, which came out uglier than he would've liked it to, and he let Joe take his hand and place it on his naked thigh. “Truth or dare, Josh?”

“Dare.”

“Dare,” Rhys repeated. “Let's give us something good, then,” and he patted Joe's leg encouragingly.

“I think Joe's supposed to come up with the dare question, not you.”

“All right. Josh,” Joe started, and judged by the look in his face, he did indeed come up with something good, evil little glint in his eye. “You know those weird noises you make during sex, the grunting ones.”

“I don't make any bloody weird noises during sex.”

“Yeah,” said Faris, “yeah, you do.”

He brought the water bottle he insisted on carrying around and sipping from to keep from catching a hangover up to his mouth, took a sip, and he said, “remember that night when I let you and Mike crash on my couch and you thought I was asleep but I wasn't and I had to _hear_ you,” and that wasn't a question at all.

“Yeah,” said Joe. “You sound like a dying animal trying to fight.”

“You guys are fucking cunts, you know that, right?”

And Josh scrunched his face up and groped for the bottle of whiskey.

“Like, I'm going to drink if that's a rule now, but I'm not passing that dare on to anyone else because I don't want to hear your bloody sex noises, all right.”

He poured himself a shot with shaky hands, got some speckles of whiskey on the carpet in the process, and somehow managed to not spill it over his chin. Rhys honestly hadn't thought of Josh as a cranky drunk until that point, but apparently he had to re-evaluate his opinion.

“And honestly, I don't need to see you guys snogging each other either, and Joe's already naked so if we keep asking each other to do weird sex shit someone's going to get shagged right here on this floor and I really don't need to see _that_.”

“We get it, Josh. You're straight and you like vagina.”

“I like vagina if it's attached to _females_ ,” Josh insisted, and at that point Joe, who'd vaguely kept composure until then, erupted into a fit of giggles and collapsed back down onto the carpet. “No more weird sex shit dares, okay?”

Again, it wasn't really a question.

And Faris said, “you're really no fun at all, mate.”

So the point is, they're playing truth, because it's really not _that_ funny to watch one of them chug hot sauce more than once, and the bottle just landed on Rhys.

“Let me see,” Rhys says, pretends to think. “Reckon I'll go for,” another dramatic pause, and he says, “truth,” and sips his glass of coke.

“All right.”

Josh leans forward to better be able to stare Rhys down, and once again, Rhys feels like a piece of meat exposed on a platter. He can _see_ Josh's brain struggling to come up with a question as invasive as possible, what's with the weird animalistic grin cut into his features, and how his bloodshot eyes squint like he could see through Rhys' skin if he just concentrates hard enough.

“I want the number,” Josh says then, as if it's completely obvious what he means by that.

A few split seconds, and then it sinks in that it _isn't_ obvious, and Josh continues, “the complete number of blokes you've had sex with.”

“What d'you mean by sex?” Faris asks, “you mean blowies or just the full dick-butt?”

The way he says it, completely deadpan and quiet the way he says everything else, Josh actually has to hide his face in his folded-up knees as he cackles for a few seconds.

“The full dick-butt, I guess.”

“All right.”

Rhys can feel how hot his face is, and he's pretty sure it's just from how drunk he is, considering he'd expected something way, way worse. He folds out his four fingers as he looks around the room, as if he's counting on his hands, and then he has to think for a split second before he's sure he's got the answer down.

“Eight. The number's eight.”

“Really?” Tom asks back at him. “I would've guessed a lot more, I don't know.”

“You know I don't just let anyone put it in my arse, right?” and Rhys leans forward to reach for the bottle and give it a good spin.

“It's like a VIP section or something,” Joe quips, but Rhys doesn't dignify him with a response.

The bottle lands on Faris.

“All right, shoot.”

And that's actually surprisingly difficult, having to come up with a question. They've already gone past the standard questions, “how big is your dick” and “when did you first have sex” – eight and a half inches, which Rhys estimates to be accurate, and fifteen and a bit – so those aren't an option.

“All right.”

Once again, Rhys sips his coke, and he can't help but feel like he should've mixed it with some of the whiskey, because it's not like he isn't drunk, he'd just like to be even drunker.

“Ever done anything with a man?”

And then, once he really turns that question over in his head, he adds, “not including anyone in this room.” Which probably isn't the most elegant way to get what he _really_ wants to know by asking that, but he feels like he should make a point of excluding himself.

Because, while it's a rule that they don't talk about it, it's not like they don't all know about what everyone else is getting up to.

Faris coughs. “Well.” He fidgets a little and says, “you know, we all know what you mean by that, but technically.”

“Technically _what_?” Rhys asks, and he can't help a tiny giggle from bubbling out with it.

Watching cooled-off reserved Faris get flustered, or at least something close to flustered, is a surprisingly satisfying sight.

“Like, technically Tom's in the room, is he?”

Which is the point when that tiny giggle turns into a big one, because, nailed it.

Josh erupts into his most obnoxious cackle at pretty much the same point, and Joe has a noticeable laugh shaking his voice and his shoulders when he asks, “ _what?_ ”

“I had a hunch,” Rhys throws in, over the sound of Josh's shrieking growing louder as Tom's face flushes deeper and deeper, “I knew it, I knew that.”

“It was just once or twice,” Tom insists, tries to keep the shake out of his voice, and he gropes for the mostly-empty bottle of Jim Beam and cradles it in his arms protectively. “We were at _boarding school_.”

“Which one of you was the top?” Josh asks, with a look on his face like his teeth might fall out if he opens his mouth up even wider, but Tom apparently pretends to not hear him.

“Does anyone want any of this before it's gone?” he asks.

They all pass up their glasses and Tom evenly pours the whiskey into all of them, and then no one really pays attention to the bottle on the carpet any more.

 

–

 

They're taking a break at a truck stop somewhere between Boston and Washington DC, it's the part of the day when it's technically morning but the sky is still too dark for it to feel like anything other than the middle of the night, and it's been almost exactly a week since that first time Rhys shagged Tom. He's trailing back behind Joe right now as he's walking away from the van they'd rented out, because, to quote, “I need to stretch my legs. You coming along?”

The world feels eerily silent, dark except for the cherry of the fag caught between Joe's fingers and the lights from the petrol station and the cars in the distance, and neither of them is doing anything to break the silence. Rhys pulls his hood up over his head against the icy wind and holds it in place, and he's craving a smoke, badly, but instead of stopping to dig his pack out from his pocket, he just keeps trudging along the pavement.

They haven't had sex since before they took off to the States, because then Tom happened, and happened again and then a third time, and even when he ended up falling asleep in Joe's bed one night when Josh got caught up at the after party and didn't come back to the hotel, Rhys felt too guilty with that knowledge hanging over his head to initiate anything. And it's stupid, it's incredibly stupid because they've gone so much longer without sex before, and still Rhys can't help but feel that it's all too obvious.

“How've you been?” Joe asks, eventually, when they've been walking for what seems like a long time but, Rhys throws a glance over his shoulder, they're only about halfway between the van and the truck stop diner.

“I don't know,” Rhys says. They've slowed down walking even more now, so he can easily catch up to be next to Joe, and also, finally pull his smokes out from where they're squashed in his trouser pocket. _I don't know_ is pretty much exactly what his brain has been feeling like, but maybe a fag will clear that up. He goes to stick it between his lips, only to notice that he doesn't have a lighter. “Hey, can you light me up?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Joe cups one hand around the cigarette when he leans over to light it up. Their hands graze when Rhys exhales a long stream of smoke into the sky, and the moment is just a little too long.

“Thanks.”

“Sure thing,” Joe says again, and then he says, “but to be frank, mate, you look like _shit_.”

And Rhys knows exactly what Joe means by that, and he knows that he really does, too, so he says, “yeah.” And then, “I shagged Tom when we were in New York.”

It's an incredibly stupid thing to say out loud, Rhys realises that as soon as he does, because that's also the point when he recalls that Joe already knows, technically, and still. “Like, three times overall.”

“Was he that bad?” Joe asks, scrunches his face up, but he's not laughing, so at least he's not treating this like a _total_ joke.

“He wasn't.” Rhys coughs, “He wasn't bad at all, if you ignore that he dirty talks like a school boy, and I wasn't his first, so...”

That's when Joe actually laughs, an awkward, hollow laugh, and that uncomfortable stupid feeling sits that much heavier in Rhys' gut. “Please,” he says, and he places one hand on Rhys' arm as if to shut him up, as if Rhys had planned on talking about sex with Tom even more. “I don't need to hear this.”

“You _asked_ about it,” Rhys insists and takes another hit from his cigarette. “I'm sorry if I answer your question about whether or not Tom is bad at sex.”

And he could go on, yes, if he'd slept with any random bloke who fucks the way Tom does, but he doesn't really want to.

“I'm never asking you about your hookups again,” Joe says, still the same scrunchy expression on his face. He kicks at a balled-up paper bag on the pavement in front of them and asks, “but actually, what d'you mean by that?”

“What I mean by what?”

“When you say you obviously weren't Tom's first, like.” And Joe takes a drag from his cigarette. “How would you know?”

Rhys bursts out laughing even when he really doesn't want to. “And you've got the nerve to say my stories about Tom's sex life are gross.”

“No, I just wouldn't be surprised if he and Faris ever...”

“What?”

“You know. Boarding school.”

“You think about men shagging a disturbing amount considering I'm the only one you'd ever let near your dick, you know?” Rhys points out, but neither of them can keep a straight face during it. “But no, I know that because I had a hunch, and then he literally told me when I asked, so there you go.” And then, since he's already talking and on a roll with his words coming out too fast, “and even then I still feel bad for letting him shag me even _if_ he's probably put his cock near Faris before.”

Maybe he raises his voice a bit too much on the last few words, because again, Joe stops him with a hand on the arm and asks, “what?”

Rhys exhales a big puffy cloud that's maybe smoke but more likely just the cold making his breath fog up, and he says, “look.” His face heats up against the crisp air, and still, he says, “you're right, I do feel like shit right now because I've shagged Tom.”

Joe says, “hey.” He strokes over Rhys' arm, more gentle this time around, and he says, “hey, it's okay.”

Rhys cuts him off. “Don't get concerned.” He pushes Joe's hand back off of himself and says, “it's nothing serious, can we just. Sit down or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Over there, or?”

There's a bench just a few feet away, even if the wood is cold and wet with leftover raindrops when Rhys sits down, but Joe pulls him in tightly with an arm across his shoulders and keeps him warm like that.

“So,” Joe starts.

He lights himself a second cigarette and fits himself a bit closer to Rhys' body. That's comforting, in a weird sense, having a body there in a purely nonsexual sense, and Joe says, “come on. Let it all out.”

Rhys makes a little affirming sound when Joe links his hands across his shoulders to properly hold him, relaxes fully into the touch, and he says, “look.”

He smokes his fag down to the butt and exhales a long heavy sigh and a big cloud of fog.

“I know exactly _why_ I feel bad 'cause I think about it all the time. So it's not that I'm mad at myself for letting Tom shag me. Or for liking it or anything.” He fishes another cigarette from his pack, and this time around, his lighter actually works, and he says, “'cause I like sex and sometimes I want sex on tour and Tom's easier to hook up with than some random bloke I don't know, you know.”

It's not a question, but Joe says “yeah” anyway.

“I'm just really mad that Tom wanted it in the first place. 'cause you know the cliché, if a band has one girl in, it's just so the blokes have something to shag on the road. I feel like the gay version of that.” Rhys feels exasperated and overdramatic when he says it, like he's making a much too big deal out of a small thing, but Joe nods anyway.

“Wow.” And Joe moves one hand to bring his fag up to his mouth again and says, “I'm sorry.”

“I'm just mad that he thought instead of trying to pull a girl it'd be a better idea to just ask me, like being gay and in a band means I'm handing out free tickets to my arse or something.”

They both burst out in low little giggles at that simile, but Rhys stops himself after a short few seconds.

“So I guess I just feel really gross and I hate Tom.”

“Yeah,” Joe says again, and it sounds completely sincere, not the type of casual “yeah” that's just to show he's still listening.

“Well, I don't really hate Tom.”

“I know you don't.” Joe moves in to put his head on Rhys' shoulder, and he says, “but I'm sorry 'cause Tom's a cunt for doing that.”

When Joe turns his head that little bit so he can connect their lips, Rhys accepts, for just a small peck. He doesn't feel that cold any more, and still, they're so close it makes him shudder, but it's in a way that isn't bad at all.

“He kind of is,” Rhys says then, when they're still close enough that they can smell each other's cigarette-flavoured breath. He thinks about his fag in his hand but doesn't crave it badly enough to want to move. “A cunt. But I mainly just hope he's not going to keep doing that.”

“That,” Joe repeats.

“Me.”

Joe laughs.

“'cause you're the only Horror allowed in my bed, you know?”

“That's good.”

Once again, they kiss, and Rhys moves closer so he can wind one arm around Joe's waist as well. He makes Joe laugh into it, fingers grazing where he's ticklish on his side, and he laughs back.

“So what do you say,” Joe starts, so close that he doesn't have to speak up at all, “when we get to DC I suck you off and then I write _property of Joseph Spurgeon_ on your arse in marker?”

“Yeah.”

And since Joe is already right there and his mouth is pink and plump, Rhys leans in to peck it again.

“Maybe don't do the second one, though.”

And he kisses Joe one more time and looks at both their fags nearly burned out and asks, “d'you want to go back to the van before they send someone to go looking for us?”

“Yeah.” Joe takes one last drag from his cigarette and drops the butt to smoulder it with his shoe and says, “imagine Josh's face if he went and found us just like this.”

“I think we'd give him a stroke,” and Rhys laughs and makes a move to get up from the bench.

They hold hands on their way back to the van, and it's easy, and Rhys doesn't think about Tom any more.

 

–

 

They get to DC, and true to what he'd said, Joe takes Rhys to the van under the guise of having him help unload his kit before their soundcheck. He locks the door from the inside and spends at least twenty minutes worshipping Rhys' cock with his lips and tongue and gentle little taps of that stupid piercing he has, without letting him get quite _enough_ , so by the time he's allowed to come Rhys is clawing at the upholstery of the seat and making embarrassing squeaky noises.

They get to LA, and Rhys declines when Joe asks if he wants to check out the local record shops along with Tom and Josh, still too exhausted from the long plane ride. He stays back in their dressing room with Faris instead, watches him sketch circles and air bubbles and shares his smokes with him even if Faris complains that he's trying to quit. Well, after they end up kissing and then shagging on the dressing room sofa, he doesn't complain about that any more, even if he did give Rhys a weird rash on his elbows and knees.

Later that night, they do it again, in Faris' single hotel room this time around. This time around, when the three of them cram into the elevator together, Josh notices Faris' hand on Rhys' hip, his lips on his ear, and Faris invites him along, not gay if it's in a three way, is it, and Rhys won't complain about that either. And a part of him does wonder if Tom's told them about it beforehand, or if it's just that they'd wanted a piece of him all along, but. But, he's drunk and horny and needy and fucking himself open on Faris' tongue and already anticipating the moment when he gets to actually sit on that big cock again, all while Josh is feeding him _his_ dick which he's completely gagging for, so as it is, Rhys doesn't pay much attention to that part.

 

–

 

Joe says, “I just want to know one thing, mate.”

They're waiting to board their flight back to London the morning after, and Rhys has hangover-flavoured regret pounding in his head and curling his guts with nausea, and the other kind of regret aching in his jaw and his throat and his arse. Joe's gotten them hot chocolates from the airport Starbucks, at least, even if, Joe says, _it's Starbucks, I don't think they're even allowed to put rum in their drinks_.

“Which one of them's the bigger one?”

Rhys asks back, “the bigger what?” and sips his rum-less chocolate. He's shivering even with the hot paper cup in his fingers and Joe's arm draped across his shoulders.

Instead of a real answer, Joe just insists, “you _know_. And you know we've all been collectively wondering.”

“Well.”

Rhys pulls a face, because the hot drink actually seems to make the burn in his throat _worse_.

“Don't tell either of them I told you that, but, Faris is definitely the bigger one.”

He sets the cup down and holds his index fingers apart to approximately show Joe _how_ big, and says, “an actual monster cock.”

And Joe knits his brow and says, “oh my god,” but he can't hide the nervous giggle in it.

“Yeah, but Josh is _thick_ , too, so. Thicker than Faris.”

“Did you like,” Joe says, and he removes the lid from his cup so he can dip a finger in and get out some whipped cream, “make them compare dicks while you watched?”

This time around, Rhys has to laugh, even if it hurts his head and he immediately regrets it.

“I actually thought about doing that, for like, a second. But I don't think Josh would've been okay with it. 'cause he didn't even want to touch my dick while I was snogging him and giving him a handy, so.”

“That's pretty rude,” Joe says. “You should always return the favour when you're getting a handy.”

“I think he just pretended like my dick didn't exist. Like he was hooking up with a really flat-chested pretty girl instead 'cause he's not gay.”

And Rhys rolls his eyes, but again, the muscles in his face burn with it.

“That's _really_ rude.”

Joe looks over to where the other guys are sitting maybe twenty feet away, and apparently they're all preoccupied with something Tom is showing them on his laptop, and he says, “you know, I always thought Josh would be the type of straight guy who wouldn't mind sucking dick every once in a while. He seems more open-minded than that.”

“Yeah, well, he's not.” Rhys takes another sip from his drink, which is starting to get cold all too quickly, and he says, “not every straight guy is like you, you know that.”

Joe makes a face. “Do you regret it?”

“Obviously I regret it.”

Rhys exhales a big white puffy cloud. He's craving a smoke, but he can't have one, for obvious reasons.

“Not as much as I regretted Tom, but that's probably just because that was the first time. Could be worse.”

“D'you think Tom told them? About you?”

“I don't know, and I don't wanna think about that.”

Joe is so absurdly warm against Rhys' side, even considering their coats, and Rhys figures it's probably a side effect of the fact that he's currently far more hungover than Joe is, but still, he cuddles into it.

“No more talking about the fact that I've had everyone else in this band shag me in the last week.”

“Okay.”

And Joe leans in and presses his lips to Rhys' forehead for a soft kiss.

“D'you know what time it is?”

“Enough time until we have to board,” Rhys says, without bothering to check his phone.

“D'you want to see if there's anywhere here we can smoke? 'cause I really need one.”

“Yeah,” Rhys says.

His hot chocolate's already cold and his legs are getting tingly from sitting down.

“Yeah, sure.”

 

–

 

For the record, Rhys doesn't end up sleeping with Tom again until when they're working on their little side project in their shoddy studio way later than that. This time around, he fully sees it coming, he anticipates it as soon as they come up with the idea of making an experimental electronic record, that it's just going to lead to him getting bent over a synthesizer with his pants and trousers at his ankles.

Maybe even ponders whether the whole thing is an elaborate ploy so Tom can shag Rhys again and not make it look suspicious. “We should spend more time together”-style.

Because the problem is, Tom's the type who thinks he's much more refined than the other guys. He doesn't give Rhys hickeys or finger-shaped bruises on his wrists or hips or somewhere people could _see_ , and he's not going to ask Rhys if he wants to come back to his flat or share hotel rooms on tour with him, or ask if he's got a minute while they're loading up gear. Tom's not _conspicuous_ like that, even though no one except for him really cares if Rhys sneaks off with Faris half an hour before they're set to go on stage and then has a strange limp in his dance moves. No, after that first time in New York, Tom doesn't try to make a move again until he can find a valid excuse for it.

So, when it takes over three days worth of work until Tom _actually_ has him bending over one of the keyboards, Rhys can't help but be surprised that they waited for that long.

How it happens, Rhys is tapping this melody onto the keys, the one he's had forming in his head for the last few days, while Tom is standing at his side listening. It's been like this ever since they started, one of them has an idea, he plays it to the other, and then they either note it down or scrap it, that stage of recording where nothing is quite taking the shape of a song yet.

“I really liked that,” Tom finally says. “We should use that, just.”

“Just what?”

“That one part in the middle, I think we should change that up just a tad.” And like that, Tom has moved even closer than he was before, so he can bracket Rhys' hands on the keyboard with his own. “Can you play that again?”

“Just the whole thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

It's actually kind of difficult this time around when Rhys plays the same fragment once again, and that's not just because his elbows knock into Tom's arms when he moves. Tom's chin is an inch or two from resting on his shoulder, and they're roughly the same size, but still, Rhys can't help but feel completely enveloped by Tom's body. A part of him is all too aware that with a few inches less distance, his bum would be resting snugly against Tom's crotch as well.

Tom knocks against his arm when he's about halfway through playing.

“This part, the bridge. We should do something more with that. If you just let me,” and like that, Tom is playing his version of the melody.

And as hard as he tries to relax and just feel the music, Rhys swears he can _feel_ all the hairs on his body raising with goose pimples when Tom's body presses against his all solid and warm.

“Yeah,” he says, even though Tom's only maybe halfway finished. “This is better.”

He keeps watching Tom's hands, long slender fingers of which he knows _exactly_ how skilled they are at something entirely else, and when he can feel Tom's lips on his ear, he can't hide that shudder that's been waiting to well up inside him for a while now.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rhys says again.

He snatches Tom's hand from the keyboard and links his fingers into it, and eh plants it on his hip just close enough to his cock. Because the thing is, it's not just that he's been anticipating this, he's actually looking forward to it in some twisted sense, and he's not sure how much longer Tom's going to pretend this is _just_ about music otherwise.

“Missed this,” Tom says when his fingers comfortably splay over the curve of Rhys' hipbone, and he noses up against the side of Rhys' neck.

“You know you wouldn't've _had_ to wait for that long.”

“Maybe not.”

And Tom's other hand comes to Rhys' hips as well, thumbs slipping underneath first the hem of his shirt and then the waistband of his trousers easily. His cock is a thick hot line even where it's confined in his skinny fits, already hard and it's pressing just right against Rhys' bum, and Rhys, Rhys just melts right into his body.

 

–

 

“So d'you want to,” Rhys starts when they're leaving their studio.

He locks the door with still-shaky fingers while Tom is watching, and it's that feeling of being exposed and vulnerable all over again for him. But different now, it's not about Tom looking at him like a piece of meat, but rather, about the fact that less than twenty minutes ago, he'd laid Rhys belly-down onto their mixing pult, regardless of all the knobs and buttons scratching him through the thin layer of his shirt, and fucked him until his legs were trembling so hard they threatened to give out. Tom's looking at him and he still sees that, Rhys is sure, and it's a type of humiliated that's making his insides give another twitch even when he feels so spent he just wants to get home and sleep for twelve hours.

“D'you want to do this again tomorrow?”

It's not _late_ by any means, the sun is just setting and yesterday they'd stayed in the studio until it was so late the regular buses had stopped running, but they're both sweaty and Rhys can still feel traces of lube around his entrance. It'd been Tom who said he needed a shower, incidentally enough, even though he _wasn't_ the one who had to get the taste of come out of his mouth. Actually, now that he's thinking about it, Rhys is _obviously_ the one between them who's far messier.

“Possibly,” Tom says back. “You mean just the _sex_ part or the _in the middle of the studio_ part?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well,” Tom says. “I think I'd rather take you out for dinner first. Tomorrow, studio, then food, then my flat?”

And Rhys wrinkles his nose and lets out an extremely audible gross snorting noise. “Mate, you're ridiculous.”

“You don't have to say _yes_. Just thought I should romance you a little bit first.”

“We've had sex four times,” Rhys says, very matter of fact.

His jacket is sticking to his skin with the sheen of sweat that's still there, but the air is too chilly for him to remove it.

“But it's nice you're making an effort, I guess.”

They both start walking towards the bus stop down the road by some unsaid agreement, and after it's been silent for a little bit, Rhys says, “I'm just pointing out, you don't need to buy me dinner to get it in.”

Tom turns over to look at him and laughs, and Rhys has to momentarily wonder _again_ how he can be this awkward and yet fuck so well.

“Yeah,” Tom says then. “I'd still rather not shag in the studio again, though. Delicate equipment.”

“Could always just cook me dinner yourself,” Rhys suggests, half mocking. “You know. Wine and dine your lady.”

 

–

 

“So that's the story of how this one time, Tom cooked me pasta and then shagged me on his table,” Rhys says.

He takes a swig of his drink, some unholy fruity cocktail that tastes like a lot of sugar and even more alcohol, and he laughs.

They're at this gay bar with a cheap drinks special that night, just the two of them, and Rhys is _drunk_. The giggly, flirtatious type of drunk that Faris calls “girlie drunk”, but _that's_ because the likelihood that he's never had fun in his life is extraordinarily high. And the main reason for that is that Joe won't stop buying them both drinks, so that means they're both similar levels of giggly and Joe won't stop tapping the rhythm of this Beyoncé song onto the counter top. Rhys predicts it's about three more Margaritas until he'll be dancing on that same counter.

The tapping stops when Joe asks, “the table in his kitchen?”

“ _Exactly_ that table.” It comes out a bit slurrier than Rhys had expected it to, and he says, “that's why he had a tablecloth on it when we were all over for dinner this weekend.”

Joe has a truly beautiful look of confusion plastered onto his face for the split second it takes until he laughs.

“Did you...?” he starts, after he's gotten past the point of laughing so hard he physically can't talk. “Oh my god.”

“No,” Rhys insists, draws the O out, and then he realises that probably makes him sound less believable, so he laughs again. “It was his own, he got his own jizz on his table.”

“ _How_?” Joe asks, makes a grope for his glass but doesn't drink, probably because he knows he won't be able to drink without spilling, what's with how much he's shaking with badly-repressed laughter, and then he adds, “I don't actually want to know.”

“It was a _miracle_ ,” Rhys says. “The miracle of the mysterious stain on the tabletop.”

“ _Ew_.”

 

–

 

Later that night, they're on the bus, sat at the very front on the top deck so they can prop their feet up against the window.

Joe says, “you know it's actually kind of gross that you're still sucking Tom's dick now.”

“What?” Rhys starts, not so much because of what Joe's saying, but because he's got his head resting on Rhys' shoulder and Rhys had assumed he'd fallen asleep about ten minutes ago. Come to think of it, though, what Joe is saying is very much _what_ as well.

“You know,” Joe insists, “since he's sleeping with my sister?”

Rhys laughs down into his hair. “What's your sister have to do with what dicks I suck?”

“Put it this way. If you're sucking the same dick as my sister,” Joe says, raises one finger as he talks and then another one, “and then you suck my dick,” three fingers, “then that's kind of like my sister sucking my dick, and that's gross.” Four fingers.

“Weird how you think about this stuff when you've been shagging my sister for years,” Rhys says back, but he can't help but laugh either way.

“That's _different_ , you know?” Joe insists. “'cause, say, if you both suck my dick that's just like if you're kissing your sister. It's not that gross.”

Rhys wrinkles his nose and makes a point of actually facing Joe just for that so he can _see_ how disgusted Rhys is with him. “Of course it's still bloody gross to think about the fact that your dick has been inside my sister's fanny.”

“Then don't,” Joe says. “Don't think about your sister's fanny.”

He grins, crooked and crazy with drunkenness, and gives Rhys a look that's probably meant to be suggestive.

“You're the one who started it,” Rhys insists, tries to keep a serious face, but his face slips and he _knows_ he's got the same stupid grin on his face. “And who insisted it wouldn't be weird if I kissed my sister.”

For a split second, Joe looks like he _might_ retort to that, but instead, he just laughs, with his face tucked down into Rhys' shoulder again.

And the thing is he doesn't _stop,_ and he's infectious with it, so Rhys laughs along.

“Rhys,” Joe gasps out, with the _Y_ sound drawn out and the _S_ slurry. “I love us.”

He buries his face deeper into the hollow of Rhys' collarbone, or at least he tries.

“Do you love me?”

“No.” Rhys tries to say it into at least the vague direction of his ear, and he says, “no, I don't. I fucking hate you and your sister-shagging ways.”

And just to show him how serious he is about that, Rhys slots his hands into the back of Joe's hair and pulls him upward to mash their lips together.

 

–

 

Maybe it starts before they've started recording an album, when all they've got is six songs and only four of them are their own and they've never even considered touring in _America_. They're all walking through Shoreditch back to the tube station after a rehearsal, Rhys and Joe ahead of the others, and they're talking about nothing.

Well, Tom's talking about this girl he pulled the other night, but Rhys is doing this thing where he isn't _literally_ covering his ears and humming, but he's internally doing exactly that.

“So I pulled out and I finished _all_ _over_ her tits, and she just goes and rubs it in. Like, she just rubs it all over her skin,” Tom concludes his anecdote, and Rhys doesn't _want_ to listen to him, but he can't help but note the mixture of excitement and bewilderment in his voice.

Faris makes a noise that sounds vaguely like a cough or a retch in response.

“That's pretty sick, mate,” Josh says. “Like, hot-sick but also just straight up _sick_ sick, why'd she do that?”

“How'm I supposed to know why she would do that,” Tom says back and laughs. “But I read somewhere that it's supposed to be good for your skin. Moisturises it.”

“You guys are so gross,” Rhys points out and turns around to pull a face at them.

“Oi, pipe down, gay-boy!” Josh shouts back, and he erupts into that ugly giggle he has.

“Is it true, though?” Tom asks, “like, the moisturising thing?”

“Why d'you think my hair is so shiny?” and that makes all four of them burst out in a mixture of laughter and disgust, so Rhys reckons he may as well join in.

When they've all come down from it, Tom asks, “so, would you rather tell us about your sex life now, Rhys?”

“Yeah, tell us what getting fucked up the ass feels like,” Josh insists and cackles some more.

Joe says, “ _guys_.”

And Rhys says, “I don't know, feels like having a dick in your arse.”

And Josh and Tom make a drawn-out uniform _duh, no shit_ noise.

“No, but why do you do it?” Faris asks, after he's been not involved in this conversation for a pleasantly long time. “'cause I can't imagine that actually feels good.”

“ _Guys_ ,” Joe insists again, at the same time that Rhys says back, “no, it actually feels great, it's like.”

He takes a second, as if to find the correct words, which is really more to gauge whether Josh is grossed out yet. Apparently he's not, or at least not enough to tell Rhys to shut up.

Rhys continues, “it's so much more intense, you know, when you come, it's like a full-body experience.” He takes Joe's hand where he's holding it out rather unsubtly towards Rhys, and he finishes, “so much more fun than straight sex.”

And Joe laughs, soft into his own mouth.

And Josh says, “doesn't it still _hurt_ , though? 'cause you know if I had someone trying to shove a whole dick up my arse I'd figure it would probably feel like taking a really big shit backwards.”

Tom says something that sounds vaguely like, “gross, mate,” at the same time that Rhys bursts out into giggles and insists, “it's not _supposed_ to hurt!”

And he squeezes Joe's hand in his, gently-briefly, and he continues, “but you know, if you ever want to find out what it's like, I'm here.”

There's a short awkward silence after the collective laughter ebbs out, and Rhys has to wonder for a split second if he's taken it too far, if he's just turned this from banter between lads into something else.

Faris asks, “any particular reason you guys are holding hands?”

Joe shrugs.

Rhys says, “it's cold.”

Which, to be fair, it is.

 

–

 

Later, way later than that, they're in a hotel room.

They're in Italy, Rome, at one of those fancy chain hotels because they had a DJ set earlier that night. Rhys has Joe on his back on the grey carpet that's carpet-burn scratchy on his knees, has Joe's fingernails curled into the space between his shoulders.

“Fuck,” Joe chokes out, when Rhys snaps his hips down particularly hard, voice muffled and tongue snarling wetly against the pads of Rhys' fingers.

 _Fuck_ , fuck's about right.

Joe is no-stretch tight and hot around his cock, so hot Rhys' chest is choked up and his legs are straining, and all he does is pull Rhys in deeper with his ankles crossed behind his back and his arms round Rhys' chest. He gets _slutty_ when he's coked up, something about blow that makes him needy and begging to get fucked as soon as they're back in their room. Something that makes him grind his arse back against Rhys when they're still in their DJ booth and plead for Rhys' fingers in his mouth when he's spread out writhing with Rhys' cock halfway up his arse.

And of course, Rhys gives that to him. He fucks Joe in short-sharp thrusts, nailing into his prostate on every one, fucks the tiniest squeaking sounds from him, teeth scraping at his knuckles every time Rhys goes in balls-deep.

Joe makes a different noise when Rhys tries to hitch his hips up further, to get it in at a deeper angle, breathy between Rhys' fingers. His cock strains hot against Rhys' belly, slippery with precome, fingers scrabbling on the scratched-sore skin of Rhys' back.

“This good,” Rhys says, into the sweaty-hot space between their faces, the few inches there, and he meant to make it sound like a question, originally, maybe.

In response, Joe squeaks again, sucks Rhys' fingers deeper into his hot mouth for a second, and he whines, “Rhys.”

“Yeah?”

Joe whines some more when Rhys removes his fingers from his mouth, but a kiss shuts him up quick enough, quick and soft and messy.

And Joe asks, “am I your favourite?”

The words come out unclear once again, with neediness and intoxication and Rhys' fingers still gripping tightly on his jaw.

Rhys asks back, “what?”

“Your favourite, am I?” Joe repeats, pets up the back of Rhys' neck and then his hair, “tell me.”

Again, it takes Rhys a few split seconds to comprehend, but this time, it's not due to any slurring in the words.

“Don't,” he hisses. Almost _spits_ it, really, down into Joe's swollen pink mouth.

His thumb strokes out over the plump bottom lip, as if to gesture for Joe to shut up, and he says, “don't ever, ever ask me that again.”

And he grips Joe's jaw tightly and kisses him to shut him up, and if the keening little sounds Rhys gets when he snaps his hips down even harder are any indication, Joe understands.

 

–

 

They're in America once again, down in the far south this time, Georgia, and Rhys has found himself in Faris' bed once again as well.

“You should stay.”

The hotel room is suffocating hot with southern-state humidity that's only made worse with the layer of bodily fluids soaking their skin underneath the equally soaked sheets, and even worse when Faris' arm tightens its grip around Rhys' waist.

Rhys makes a non-committal noise. “Can't.”

“You should,” Faris says once again.

Maybe what's the worst is how tightly Faris is spooned up against Rhys' back, heated chest fitting just right to his back, so right that he can feel Faris' heartbeat in his bones. There's still something about how much warmer Faris is compared to him, compared to _anyone_ , really, like he's got a sweltering sun trapped right underneath his skin, and Rhys tries to squirm away from it once more.

“You know I really can't stay.”

What Rhys needs is a long shower and to scrub the drying mess of jizz and sweat from his belly. And then, maybe, a late night dip in the hotel pool to really get all the excess heat out of his body. Maybe see if Joe will sneak out along with him.

“Joe's probably wondering about where I am.”

“He's not. 'cause he knows you're with me.”

Faris' mouth is too close and breathing too hotly against Rhys' neck right before it presses a kiss onto the mottled skin there.

“Doesn't matter what Joe thinks, anyway.”

And Rhys lets out an ugly snort of a laugh, which turns into a slightly less ugly giggle when Faris keeps attacking his neck with kisses and gentle-gentle nibbles, aiming straight for the parts where he's ticklish. He squeaks and squirms around in Faris' grip, squawks out a “stop it, Faris!” when Faris blows a raspberry against his collarbone, and still, he can't stop giggling and clutching Faris' warm hands where they're folded on his belly.

“But you don't sound like you _want_ me to stop,” Faris points out, bites where he'd marked Rhys up earlier on. “Recall you were telling me just earlier tonight, _don't stop, Faris, don't stop_ , is that right?”

And once again, Rhys can't form a real reply but the giggles that hiccup out when Faris' hair keeps tickling the back of his neck, when Faris' mouth keeps on kissing over his sensitive parts as it's humming with vibrations.

“Stop it, please!”

The thing is, Rhys doesn't like intimacy. Cuddles or excessive tenderness during sex, or the concept of romantic relationships in general. But he likes this, likes Faris' arms around his waist, the sensation of having a larger man folded all around him, being small, and he likes having Faris' undivided attention, too. Being wanted, and he's pretty sure Faris' cock is already fattening up once again where it sits in the dip of his bum. Rhys especially likes that little detail.

And the other thing is, Faris doesn't stop, his grip too solid and his mouth too insistent for Rhys to possibly try and squirm away from it. His fingers creep up along Rhys' chest to gently pinch around his nipples, where they're already perked up and goosebumped, that same old tit-fondling motion, but it makes Rhys writhe in his arms all the same.

“Faris,” Rhys keens, with the I drawn out for so long it doesn't sound like much of a word any more, but he'll just blame Faris' mouth on the sensitive spot under his jaw for that.

Faris chuckle-snorts against his shoulder in response, just for a split second before he goes back to the rumbling hum he has. “You staying the night?”

“I think I am.”

“Mm.”

Faris rumbles some more before he actually moves in to kiss Rhys properly.

Faris is a good kisser, soft and steady with chapstick-gentle plushy lips. Kisses the way he fucks, and he's a good shag as well, the languid type who really takes his time. He opens Rhys up with his tongue, gently-gently licks in and keeps pulling off to place a peck or two onto Rhys' cheeks instead, all with his fingers toying strange patterns around Rhys' nipples. The exact opposite of how Rhys would've _guessed_ he'd shag, too, not at all the abrasive, anxious type, and that's when Faris sucks at his bottom lip and makes his cock stir once again.

“I still need to shower.”

Really, Rhys knows perfectly well that they're just going to get dirtied up once again sooner or later tonight, but the mess on his belly is already starting to dry and itch.

“You can take a shower in my bathroom,” Faris insists, but he does loosen his grip around Rhys' waist. “I'll wait.”

“Mm.”

It only hits Rhys just how cold the air conditioning has made the room when he's peeled himself out of the sheets, goosebumps blooming all along his skin pretty much as soon as he gets up. He gropes for a discarded shirt on the floor, the tacky Hawaiian-print one Faris had picked up some days earlier. It's too big when he puts it on and does the first few buttons up, even bigger than it is on Faris.

Rhys supposes it could be just right on him if he wears it unbuttoned over a plain black tee, though.

“Why're you wearing my shirt?” Faris asks, the post-sex heaviness so much more apparent in his voice now that he's not drawling directly into Rhys' ear.

“Cold in here,” Rhys says back, fumbles another button closed. He feels the drag of the fabric over his skin, inhales the smell of Faris' cologne and skin and sweat still clinging to it, and he says, “I like this shirt.”

Faris laughs, short and deep and raw.

“You can have it. I like how it looks on you.”

“Wouldn't have given it back to you anyway.”

Rhys takes a second to pick his own discarded shirt up off the floor since he's already at it, his trousers, too, winces for a split second when he has to bend down. He _knows_ Faris is still staring at him, at his arse where it's just peeking out underneath the shirt, and that's one more reason to keep that shirt.

When he turns, Faris' cock is a fat hard crease in the thin sheets, fully hard again, and, _god_. Rhys really can't figure why he ever thought he wouldn't spend the rest of the night in Faris' room.

“Hey. Looking a bit excited,” he points out, laughs, and Faris just gives a weak smile in response.

Rhys leans down to kiss him once more, soft and fleeting, but lasting long enough that he can squeeze Faris' dick under the covers just to rile him up.

“Don't want you to go yet,” Faris insists when Rhys has barely pulled away, when he's still close enough to feel Faris' breath against his lips. “You can just shower when we're done with the second round.”

“We'll have the second round after I shower, big boy.”

 

–

 

The _other_ other thing is that Rhys is perfectly aware that Faris is in love with him.

He's known since that first time they kissed at that after party, which was really just meant to be a stupid dare on his end, just some teasing to rile Faris up and maybe help him loosen up, since that first time they had sloppy slow sex on that grubby dressing room couch. Well, what can he say, he's not _thick_. Even if he was, it's pretty hard to interpret all those pages in Faris' sketchbooks and the way he sometimes whispers Rhys' name in his sleep and holds on to him that bit tighter in any way other than _deeply and painfully in love_.

They're smoking on Faris' balcony one morning, after Rhys had spent the night at his flat once again. This is also after Faris had brought Rhys pancakes and scrambled eggs in bed and then proceeded to fuck him into the mattress. It's _also_ also the third time this year that Faris has given up on trying to quit smoking. 

The morning is one of those slow-burning ones when the smoothie-orange-pink of dawn just won't leave the sky even when it's been hours since the sun came up. And it's quiet, save for the noise from the cars down on the street and the sound of playing children somewhere nearby, and the steady drip-drip-drip of water from Rhys' hair down onto his shoulders and the back of the lawn chair he's sat on. 

Faris stubs his fag out in the ashtray when it's gotten to the point that Rhys feels it's _too_ quiet, gropes for Rhys' smokes to light himself another one, and when he exhales a big ball of fog, he says, “I've a question.”

“Go ahead.”

Rhys goes to light up another fag as well, like he's only now got the OK for that, since they're technically Faris' fags, and he picks a loose thread from the shirt he's wearing, which, technically speaking, is also Faris'.

“Which one of us is your favourite?”

“What?” Rhys asks back. He turns around to make eye contact, or rather, he turns his head, because Faris isn't looking back at him.

“You know what I mean by that,” Faris says. He shuts his eyes and exhales another cloud of smoke and asks, again, “which one of us do you like the most?”

And Rhys turns back to look away from Faris as well, takes a drag from his cigarette, and he says, “I don't play favourites.”

“You don't,” Faris repeats, and it's not a question, but Rhys can still tell he's sceptical.

“I _don't_ ,” Rhys insists.

He leans forward to rest himself on his folded-up knees, drops a trail of ash down onto the balcony tiles. And he says, “I don't have any emotional attachment to this.”

Faris doesn't say anything in return for a second. The silence between them crackles with static.

Finally, Faris repeats, once again, “you don't?”

“No, it's just, you know.” Rhys scratches at his shin and says, “it's convenient, I guess that's why I do it.”

“What d'you mean?”

“Come on.” And Rhys can't help but to huff out a laugh when he parrots Faris' own words back at him, “you know _exactly_ what I mean by that.”

When he looks this time, Faris is actually facing him, even if he looks away the second Rhys makes eye contact.

“Simple as this: I let all of you guys shag me so I don't have to deal with pulling blokes on tour.” He pauses for a split second to suck at his fag, and he continues, “and you guys shag me so you don't have to pull groupies instead, and to alleviate whatever guilt you've got about cheating, I guess.”

Rhys says, “'cause you know, it doesn't count as long as it's with a bloke. Doesn't count if your dick stays in the band, that's what's convenient.”

And again, when Rhys looks over, Faris has his face turned away, that painfully forced stoic thing he has that's obviously an act, and that's just one of the reasons why he will _never_ be Rhys' favourite.

“So it's just like a fuck-buddies thing with no emotional attachment, you know.”

It's quiet once more, but that static crackle is gone now, replaced with stale, cold air. Rhys is pretty sure he can physically feel all the colour drain from Faris' face, feel the awful sinking sensation he's still trying to hide with his stupid blank face, and when he sucks on his fag, that doesn't make it better.

Finally, Faris says, “I see.”

The legs of the chair screech against the floor when he gets up, and Rhys feels like he's said something wrong, terribly wrong. Band-endangering level wrong. He doesn't have the nerve to say anything right then, though.

“Joe's your favourite,” Faris says then, when he's gathering their two teacups from earlier together in his one big hand. “Isn't he?”

“I told you I don't _do_ favourites,” Rhys insists once again.

And when Faris actually nudges the screen door open to go back inside, Rhys feels like it'd be even more uncomfortable if he just stayed on the balcony by himself. He follows Faris to the kitchen in silence, obviously out of place.

“I'm going to make myself another cuppa,” Faris says, finally. “D'you want one as well?”

“I'm all good,” Rhys says back and sits himself up on the kitchen counter.

He's going to pretend that Faris didn't finish his tea well over an hour ago, and then that's all good, too.

 

–

 

Really, it starts much, much earlier than that. Before there's even a spark of a thought of ever starting a band, before there's Faris and Tom, and before Josh. Before all of that, there's Rhys and Joe and the Junk Club.

And approximately half an hour after they first meet, Joe's on his knees on the grubby bathroom floor with Rhys' dick in his mouth. He's not doing a very good job with it, no, too much teeth and too much suction and not enough lips and tongue, but it's enough to make Rhys come either way, and then, he comes basically as soon as Rhys has undone the zip on his jeans and given his cock a good few strokes.

And Rhys' first instinct is to laugh, right into the mouth of this tiny boy with a mullet who's still clutching at his arse and making the same tiny noises he did when he was still sucking Rhys' cock, choked off and whiny under the distant hum of bass.

“Jesus fuck,” he breathes out, pulls his soiled hand from the boy's cockhead.

There's a part of him that has the urge to just smear it all across mullet boy's mouth, since he seemed more than ready to swallow Rhys' jizz as well, but he goes for the toilet roll conveniently on the wall right next to them instead.

“I'm sorry,” mullet boy says back, sheepish and just as boyish as his sex noises, and yeah, this may be the first time Rhys is _actually_ paying attention to what his voice sounds like.

“Never sucked a DJ's cock before.”

He giggles and leans in for a kiss, and Rhys lets him have it, tastes mainly himself, that distinct cock flavour, over a hint of whiskey and coke still hanging around in that kid's mouth.

“Never actually sucked anyone's cock.”

Rhys can't say he's surprised by that.

“Well, my first time went way worse than that, so you're good.”

The kid keeps giggling, face pink with it even in the dim light, or maybe that's the booze or some leftover arousal, Rhys can't tell.

“Think I should buy you a drink to celebrate?”

And really, he mostly says it as an excuse to get out of this bathroom stall, and also, to maybe help the kid loosen up a bit. And _also_ also, he should probably get back to his DJ booth pretty soon, because while he's got Oliver covering him, he's been playing nothing but garbage for the past ten minutes or so and it kind of ruined the mood when Rhys was getting blown.

“If you want to.”

The kid fidgets when Rhys moves to unlock the door, not sure if he should hold his hand or his wrist, or just keep one hand on Rhys' arse, but Rhys brushes him off.

“My name's Joe, by the way,” mullet kid Joe says.

“Pleased to meet you. I'm Rhys,” Rhys says back, and then adds, “obviously.”

Joe laughs.

“What d'you drink?”

“Whiskey on the rocks.” And Joe leans in and says right into Rhys' ear, “need to get the taste of dick out of my mouth.”

Rhys just laughs.

He buys Joe his drink and tells him he needs to get back to DJing now, pecks him on the cheek one last time and tells him he'll be back, and that's that.

He's not going to come back. He never does.

Except, well, then the next Junk night, he does come back, or more precisely, he ends up snogging Joe in the exact same toilet stall once again, jeans and pants rucked down to mid-thigh so Joe can jerk both their dicks together in one calloused hand.

After the third time it happens, when Joe gets Rhys' cock out from the fly of his trousers and whispers in his ear, “Let me. I've been practising on bananas,” before sliding down onto his knees onto the grubby floor _again_ , they exchange numbers.

 

–

 

Harry knows about it, obviously.

Of course she knows way before Joe ever tries to make a move on her, because it's pretty hard to miss when Rhys lets the same guy kip at his place after Junk nights over and over, and even harder to miss when he spends much of his time in the DJ booth whispering into that bloke's ear and giggling into his mouth.

They're lying piled-together-sweaty in Rhys' bed one night, when there's some _vague_ idea of starting a band up in the air, when Joe says, “your sister's fit, you know?”

Again, it's one of those moments when it's been quiet for so long that Rhys is startled for a short second at the realisation that Joe isn't _actually_ asleep.

“I'd shag her.”

“What?” and then, when it sinks in, he adds, “you're gross.”

“You're the one around here who's gross,” Joe argues, noses at the curve of Rhys' neck.

Really, they're both kind of gross, what's with the amount of bodily fluids gluing them together, but Rhys still makes a vague sneering noise and strokes over Joe's ribcage where he's kept his hand for too long now. He can feel Joe's heartbeat in his palm, still booming, and _that's_ gross too, come to think of it.

“Least I'm not talking about how I'd shag any relatives of yours after I just bummed you,” Rhys points out.

Joe giggles.

The room is sticky with heatwave humidity again, if the stickiness on their bodies wasn't bad enough, and the sweaty air around them pulsates with that same heartbeat rhythm, or maybe that's just Rhys' imagination. He's too fucked out to move, really, arms and legs tired from being wrapped around Joe, but he's suddenly all too aware of the fact that he should take a shower.

“I'm serious, though.”

Rhys doesn't bother with the obligatory _what?_ this time around.

“I like Haz, she's a nice girl. I'd take her out.”

Joe's voice is small when he says it, even in comparison to their already low conversation in the quiet room, barely above a whisper, and Rhys isn't sure if he wants to laugh. He does either way, even though there's a huge possibility Joe was _actually_ serious.

And then he just keeps on laughing, into Joe's sweat-tacky collarbone, the weird hiccuping laugh that's almost no voice at all in it.

“You okay?”

“I can't believe you,” Rhys presses out when he can finally make words again.

Joe's skin smells suffocatingly like sweat and like _Joe_ , and maybe that's the reason why the words come out choked off.

“I can't believe how much of a fucking idiot you are.”

Maybe that's not to be taken seriously either, but Rhys isn't sure if that's how he means it or not, and then that stupid cackle starts hiccoughing from his mouth once again.

For a split few seconds, there's a weird silence in the room that creeps up his back and along the lining of his throat and makes him shiver, and then Joe says, finally and once again, “hey? Everything all right?”

And Rhys just keeps laughing into his skin. There's a different sensation bubbling up in his throat, now, sort of like the fizz from drinking too much carbonated water and sort of like being high. He feels surreal and everything else feels unreal.

“Are you crying?”

“Oh my god.”

“You sound like you're crying.”

“Of course I'm not _crying_.”

And Rhys removes his head from Joe's neck, twists around until he's got Joe spooned up along his back and until he doesn't have Joe's smell and his skin clogging up his face any more. He reaches for the bottle of water he keeps on the bedside and takes a long messy sip, a little bit spills out onto the bedclothes. Those sheets had to be changed as it is.

Joe hums. “Sure you're okay?”

He's still got his arm thrown across Rhys' middle, nose up against the space between his shoulders so Rhys can feel him inhale and exhale. Rhys isn't sure if this is better or worse than literally breathing him in. And he laughs again.

“You're so dumb,” he says, once again as well, but he feels it bears repeating. “This's why I don't sleep with straight blokes.”

“I'm sorry?”

Joe's stupid arm moves in an attempt to link his fingers with Rhys', and Rhys pushes him away.

“Straight blokes want to fuck you when they're bored or pissed or just because they think it's fun and girls won't let them put it in the other hole,” Rhys says, voice slurry and hissing with sick, poisonous bile.

Just like how he feels, a toxic type of nauseous, like he could possibly vomit right there, and he takes another sip of the water.

“I'm not,” Joe starts, at the same time that Rhys cuts him off with, “and then they fall in love with girls and that's it, then they leave you because they've got something else to stick it in now.”

That stupid hand lays itself back onto Rhys' side, the spot underneath his ribcage where it dips in just right for Joe's fingers to fit, and this time, Rhys doesn't bother with pushing it away.

And again, Joe says, “I'm sorry.”

Rhys makes a vaguely disdainful snorting noise in response.

“I didn't mean to, you know, break up with you right after we had sex.”

Joe moves in to lay his chin onto Rhys' shoulder, and again, Rhys doesn't stop it.

“Just wanted to, you know. Ask your permission, I guess, 'cause I know Haz likes me.”

And he's close enough to kiss Rhys like this, on the neck or on the ear, there's that anticipatory thrill of it lingering on Rhys' spine. He doesn't do it, though, and so, Rhys just snorts again.

“Doesn't mean we have to stop doing this.”

“What d'you mean?”

“I mean an open relationship,” Joe says, and there it is, he's got his lips on the soft spot behind Rhys' ear before he's even completely finished speaking.

That's what Rhys absolutely, absolutely hates about Joe, how they know each other's bodies and sensitive parts and _exactly_ how to get each other weak, and he also hates how hard he has to try to hide the shiver that runs through his body.

“Yeah, mate,” he says, then, and he pushes the duvet back to sit up. “That's not really that much better.”

“What're you doing?” Joe asks, when it's transparently obvious what Rhys is about to do.

Rhys says back, “need to shower.”

He reaches for a discarded shirt on the floor, doesn't bother with checking whether it's his or Joe's in the dark, and drapes it across his shoulders.

Joe's watching him with the most expectant expression in his sleepy eyes when he looks back just for a split second, when he's just about to crack open the door, and Rhys doesn't have anything to say to him. His shirt smells like Joe's cologne, though, and that nausea is creeping back into his gut.

 

–

 

Way later again, and they're in a different hotel after a different DJ set, in Spain this time around, Rhys is pretty sure.

They've got music playing on Rhys' laptop, but beyond that, it's quiet, the comfortable type of post-sex quiet, although Rhys should probably shower soon. He figures he can still put it off, though, since the room isn't _too_ hot and Joe is draped across his chest just right and he doesn't really want to disturb him.

When it's been quiet for too long _again_ , Joe says, “what're you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Rhys says back, truthfully.

He strokes over Joe's back, just because he's got his hand right there, although the sweat-tacky skin makes him think that maybe it's _Joe_ who should be taking a shower.

“What're _you_ thinking about?”

Joe giggles into his chest and presses a kiss there, right on the bruise he somehow left next to Rhys' nipple.

“I'm thinking I want to marry Haz.”

“You do?” Rhys asks, although he's not genuinely surprised.

“Yeah. If you give me permission, I guess.”

Rhys laughs. “Why would you feel the need to ask me permission for that?”

“I don't know,” Joe says. “But you were pretty cross with me when we first started going out, so.”

“Yeah but that's, you know.”

Rhys makes a noncommittal noise and shrugs as good as he can with 140 pounds of bloke on top of him.

“That's _different_. And I'm used to it now.”

He looks down at Joe in the bit of light that's coming in from the window, eyes so wide all the blue is gone from them, and Rhys can't tell if that's just the dark or if his pupils are still blown with sex.

And he says, “don't have time for feelings any more.”

Joe laughs, short and dry, and he leans up to press a peck against Rhys' lips.

“So you're giving me permission to marry your sister,” he says, then.

“Sure I am.”

They kiss once again, soft giggles bubbling out between their mouths, and Rhys is pretty sure Joe's the one who started it but he goes along any way, even though he's not entirely sure what's supposed to be funny about this situation.

“Hey,” Joe says when they break apart, when he's somehow shifted so he's looming above Rhys with both elbows planted on the pillow left and right of his head.

Rhys doesn't really mind the change of position.

“What's so funny?”

“I've no idea,” Rhys says back.

When he bursts out in another wave of giggles, Joe kisses it right off his face.

“You know, though...”

“Yeah?” Rhys asks, into what little space there is between them, the space that couldn't possibly be small enough.

“If I get married to your sister that means we can have awkward quiet sex in your old bedroom on Christmas.”

“You say that like we're not having sex every Christmas as it is,” Rhys points out, and still, he can't keep himself from tipping his head up for another kiss.

“ _Still_ ,” Joe insists. “Just really wanted to give you another selling point.”

He dips his head down and goes in for Rhys' neck, then, makes him giggle and his fingers scrabble up Joe's back at once for a split second, before it actually gets too much and he goes for swatting at Joe's shoulders instead.

“What're you _doing_?”

“Was gonna mark you up. Property of Joseph Spurgeon,” Joe says, matter of fact, with this teasing-smug grin etched into his face underneath the low light. “Just to settle it.”

And when he leans in this time to tug at the skin with his teeth, Rhys just lets it happen, even if he does shriek out a cackle and slap at Joe's back once again when the sting gets too much for him. He can feel Joe laughing back against his skin, too, before he pulls back.

“There you go. My favourite.”

“Am I your favourite _Webb_ , too?” Rhys asks, and he almost immediately wishes he hadn't asked that question, even when he's still giggling with it.

“You're both my favourites.”

And Joe's desperate for it when he leans in for more kisses, doesn't let Rhys possibly move away from his mouth, but then, it's not like he really wants Joe to stop.

“D'you have to go shower now?”

“I can shower tomorrow morning.”

“Nice,” Joe says, before he moves in to take another kiss from Rhys.

**Author's Note:**

> obligatory disclaimer: none of the biphobic implications that Rhys' view of Joe's sexuality entails reflect my own views.


End file.
